Future is bright if you take care of your supply chain
A COMPANY that started life as one man’s brainwave on the way to a football match is now celebrating a decade of success. Ten years ago, Allen Associates came into being.
John Allen had spent around 30 years working in senior purchasing roles for international organisations including Valor and Baxter Healthcare, and came to the North East in 1985 to join Glaxo at their penicillin factory in Cambois, Northumberland.
One evening in December 1999, John, who is a committed Tottenham Hotspur fan, was on his way to watch Spurs’ FA Cup replay at St James’ Park, when he suddenly realised that he wanted to spread the word about the value that can be created from better procurement and management of the supply chain.
This sudden realisation softened the blow of Newcastle’s 6-1 win and John handed in his resignation the following morning.
Using his wide experience of buying commodities, chemicals, packaging and services, John set up his own business, focusing on providing support to purchasing and supply-chain professionals with training, cost-down support, consultancy on cost improvement, internal audit and the provision of interim professionals.
The business started on March 1, 2000. The first year was tough and most income was generated by matching firms that had surplus materials with potential buyers of those goods.
John has realised that most customers want both breadth and depth of experience, so he has developed a co-operative business model, drawing upon his network of like-minded professionals, both locally and nationally, to provide customers with a wide range of skills and experience.
A former colleague once told John that “we need to sell solutions not products” and this theme of flexibility and agility in order to bring about customer delight has proved very successful.
Allen Associates now has a wide client portfolio in both the public and private sectors including several police forces and local councils, as well as clients in the oil and gas and manufacturing sectors.
John’s clients are distributed from Aberdeen to Abu Dhabi. Most recently, he has been supporting LondonMet Enterprises Ltd with a training programme in Bahrain leading to a professional qualification.
Allen Associates has also won business providing training in Serbia, supporting IHR, who are the registered provider in Belgrade for the Chartered Institute of Purchasing & Supply (CIPS).
This work has involved clients from the Serbian pharmaceutical industry as well as some major international retail brands who have offices in and around Belgrade.
Allen Associates is a LondonMet Enterprises Ltd Associate and has been involved in the development and delivery of a CIPS Level 2 Training programme for the regional Centres of Excellence. This involved the delivery of procurement training in over 50 local and London-based councils.
These programmes continue today with many councils supplementing the basic CIPS training with specific courses on negotiation, tender management, dealing with contractors and getting the best value from suppliers.
For the last two years, Allen Associates has been delivering training for the CIPS Graduate Diploma at levels 4, 5 and 6 in Newcastle as well as support for students across the world through a programme of distance learning.
Customers will become increasingly demanding. Costs will continue to be under pressure. But the future is bright for buyers and other supply-chain professionals.
More and more organisations are starting to recognise that more value can be generated for the business through improved management of the supply chain, than can be achieved in most other aspects of the business. With better training, these gains are within the reach of all organisations.
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